Fredrick Nzwili is a journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. For more than 15 years, he has written about religion, politics, peace and conflict, development, security, environment and wildlife. His articles have appeared in international media organizations among others; The Tablet, The Christian Science Monitor, The National Geographic and Kenyan local newspapers; The Standard and the People Daily.

Holy crap these bishops are dangerously stupid fear mongers. There is nothing more dangerously ridiculous than the nexus between public health and religion.

The Great God Pan

“WHO carried out similar vaccination campaigns in Mexico in 1993 and in Nicaragua and the Philippines in 1994.”

And did those campaigns presage a significant drop in the birthrates of those countries? You’d think someone would have noticed.

The Great God Pan

“Holy crap these bishops are dangerously stupid fear mongers.”

And what does that say about the reporters at outfits like Religious News Service who are treating this story as a credible accusation rather than a wacko conspiracy theory?

Larry

I am not getting the impression of the accusation appearing credible by the author. Merely a description and display of the paranoia here.

I took it as a given by the author that opposing vaccination in a developing country was something to be considered dangerously dumb.

The Great God Pan

Look at the way the article is written and structured. Look at how the headline uses the soft-sounding “birth control” instead of “sterilization” and “miscarriages,” which sound harsher and would be more likely to inspire incredulity in the reader.

Look at how the bishops get to explain their theory about the pregnancy hormone and how the WHO has supposedly previously ended vaccination campaigns rather than submit the vaccines to testing (*), yet there is no indication that anyone from the WHO was asked to respond to either accusation.

And look at who gets the last word (a simple and useful test in determining bias in news coverage).

Larry

Points well taken. On a second glance of the article, I can see what you are saying here.

KIIRYA BULASIYO

I may not doubt anything here as far as the whites are concerned for they’re a menace to Africans, otherwise let us be slow to free donations and work harder to develop our continent else Africa turn into history. they will say once upon time there existed black continent.
Praise GOD.

The Snopes article on this is helpful, as it gives some of the scientific background. The vaccine absolutely is being targeted toward women of childbearing age. That’s because it’s not simply a tetanus vaccine, but a program specifically aimed at maternal and neonatal tetanus. We in North America think of tetanus as stepping on a rusty nail, but in actuality the tetanus spores are all around , especially in agricultural areas. Vaccination of mothers can impose immunity on the child in utero. Is it possible that there’s some hormonal interaction with the vaccine? Yes, but as the article and other commenters have said, you would expect to see large drops in birth rate in the many other countries this has been tried.
One more thing: Pampers has joined with Unicef in some of the developing-countries vaccination program. If the vaccine really caused sterility, you’d doubt that Pampers would want to be involved as that would pretty directly hit their bottom line.

The Kenya bishops are wrong about the vaccine being “birth control”. They are also criminally wrong in opposing birth control. Vatican opposition to birth control was locked in by Pope Paul’s VI’s 1968 ban, which he promulgated in defiance of the overwhelming majority of his own advisers. Overpopulation in Kenya and other developing countries is responsible for the deaths of untold thousands of women and unimaginable poverty.

The official 1975 US government study NSSM 200 showed that there were then about 30 million abortions per year worldwide, a figure that has risen t 40 million. Most of these could have been avoided if the Vatican had just listened to its own advisers.

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)

Larz

People on here act like it is false because it could never happen .. but it has happened in Guatamala it happened and Hillary Clinton appologized for it. Ever heard of the tuskeegee experiment ?

And so what what snopes may say .. I don’t think they have a clue anyway .. what do they have a crystal ball is that it ?

Larz

Many atrocities of all sorts have happened all over the world that you know nothing about because the history you are taught is highly selective ..

Larz

Really, well there is never been a more bunch of vodoo and witch craft than the medical establishment and their push of things like chemo therapy and all their over priced do nothing drugs that have killed millions of more people than any bunch of Christian Scientist ever has ..

Nate

I am wondering exactly what is wacko conspiracy theory. Is it that the tests were done, or is it the results of the tests or is it the bodies response to the hormone? I don’t much care about the name calling I care about the facts. The fact seems to be that the tests were performed by credible labs and the findings are credible. Why is the hormone in the vaccination and what is the bodies reaction to it?

Unbelievable! The Kenyan bishops opposing tetanus immunization are no different from the Taliban opposing polio immunization in Pakistan. When will this ignorance end?

Marcell Aaron Jr

I just want to say hi I’ Marcell Aaron Jr,

Judy

Garson, It has nothing to do with how many people there are. It has EVERYTHING to do with the oppressive government not allowing the free market to flourish so people could work and make a good living.

NickNick

It is understandable that people have a hard time believing that the ‘good’ country we live in would ever do something like this. But it is TRUE. The polio vaccine thing in Pakistan was IN FACT a well planned scheme by our government to collect the DNA of terrorists/terrorist suspects. Read it: NY Times- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/world/asia/12dna.html?_r=1&amp; when you think about it like this, how many other times has our government done these type of things and NOT been caught? You don’t get caught every time you speed on the highway!?! Nor do we hear about every story like these.